I needed to get from point A to point B and no one was available to drive me. Well perhaps a slight irregularity in the music selection I’d chosen for my overall commute, the Magnificat. Personally, I’m not particularly religious, but I have a strong attraction to sacred music – evidenced here and there about this blog. I don’t really have “getting pumped for the start of the day” music, I’ve got “overdeveloped sense of entitlement” music that can serve a similar purpose.

Were I head of state, I’d have the opening of the Magnificat played when I entered a room. Sort of like Hail to the chief, but even grander. Who needs an armed forces band when one can get an orchestra, horn flourishes, and a chorus. Maybe I’m an emperor without an empire, or a prince without a principality, but I can still play the Magnificat while walking around the streets of New York City. As I said, overdeveloped sense of entitlement – or taking the Calvin and Hobbes life with a soundtrack comic strip a bit far.

So anyway, I’d decided to repeat a particularly well crafted piece, its entirety,:

Suscepit Israel puerum suum recordatus misericordiae suae.

He has taken under his protection Israel his boy, and remembered his mercy.

The soprano-alto combination is just generally brilliant, and just because I can, I’ll throw in the general moving-ness of Et misericordia also from the Magnificat and So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen from the St. Matthew Passion. (Given what follows, Bach as a bookend is utterly necessary.)

I happened to be taking this cab ride with two other people, strangers who were also going to be dropped off. Myself and another gentleman sat in the back seat, and one passenger sat in the front seat next to the driver.

Upon entering the cab, the passenger in the front seat began to complain. Loudly. I didn’t see what had happened, and the way his complaints were going, I guessed he had sat in something unpleasant. Was it just a wet spot left by an ill placed umbrella? My commute had begun with a pretty uproarious thunderstorm, so that was a possibility. Was it some unpleasant liquid that would leave a stain? Fourth of July weekend, maybe some passenger had partied a little too hard earlier in the evening. But I didn’t smell anything untoward.

The cause of complaint became apparent, sitting in the cab just outside the dispatch office. While entering, part of an article of clothing snagged on something on the cab door and had ripped. There’s a hole in my $200, name-brand designer article of clothing. Cursing and fussing directed at the dispatcher, whose window overlooks where cabs pick passengers up. Then cursing and fussing directed at the cab driver. I’m not sure who he wanted $200 from, but there the definite implication of being owed $200 for a mishap that was, to his mind, clearly the fault of the cab company, dispatcher, and cab driver. What if a child had been with him? What if the cause of the torn shirt caused bleeding? There were not questions posed as in a Socratic dialogue, “Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question? What do you consider to be…”.

The situation calmed down somewhat, but not entirely and certainly not a good start to the journey. During the course of the cab ride, Angry Passenger’s near-fury at the tearing of the shirt did not subside. Angry Passenger proceeded to make cell phone calls where he shared his displeasure in vivid terms. I would beat up the cab driver, but jail. And also, the “If I had my gun I would…”.

I was going to write veiled threats of violence, but it is hard to describe a profanity laced expression of anger in that way, via cell phone conversations with third parties, as veiled. This was not a pleasant cab journey for me and I wasn’t even the target. And unfortunately passenger to my left was getting dropped off first. So me, not so veiled threat of violence guy, and cab driver for part of the journey. Not exactly how one wants to conclude a commute. We did happen to pick up two additional passengers, a pair of friends, on the way to veiled threat of violence guy’s destination. I got bumped to fourth in line to be dropped off, but was happy to have company.

Threats-guy was dropped off and insisted on not paying, and the cab driver let it go. I thought a wise decision. I still don’t know if the whole show of anger was just a method of getting out of paying for the ($4 without tip) cab journey, or if this was genuinely the threats-guy’s way of proceeding in the world: get angry, express threats, including the threat of beating up people who displease and/or threatening to use firearms.

And maybe I’m taking what was really customer dissatisfaction mixed with hyperbole too seriously, but I’ve underestimated the prospect of two strangers engaged in a dispute breaking out into outright violence right before my very eyes before. With oddly similar thoughts during the buildup to actual violence in that instance: Is this really happening? That person didn’t really just threaten violence did he? Maybe I misheard him – or maybe I misunderstood something innocuous for a threat of violence? Or mistook that statement for this situation headed in a direction it clearly wouldn’t go in? And then sure enough, I was distressingly near a fight on an LIRR train. What’s more, $200 shirts weren’t involved in that instance. (I’ve had stretches of time in bubbles where I’d forgotten that people used certain, fairly untowards methods of expression full stop.)

I want to tie this tale up with a bow. And maybe it is something as simple as, angry guy was a jerk and direct, customer-facing jobs can be incredibly difficult in ways that office-all-day people don’t appreciate enough. But I’ll use as a bookend something, perhaps, more hopeful. From a genius of music to one of the written word, the story of Maya Angelou’s encounter with a famous recording artist (hat tip to the friend who shared another program featuring Maya Angelou where I first heard this story; this quote via Business Insider).

“I didn’t know who he was. He was into a big row with another young man so I said to him, ‘May I speak to you?’ and he was cursing, whoo. And I said, ‘When was the last time anyone told you how important you are?’ Did you know people stood on auction blocks and were bought and sold so that you could stay alive today?’

And finally he heard me and stopped talking and started to weep. I put my arms around him and walked him back into the arena and he quieted. I went back to my trailer and Janet Jackson came running in and said, ‘Dr. Angelou, I don’t believe you actually spoke to Tupac Shakur!’ And I said, ‘Darling, I don’t know him from 6-pack.’ I had never heard of him.”

An unbecoming dodge that sovereign human rights violators attempt in trying to evade responsibility for their actions was recently attempted, by of all parties, the Vatican. It is a dodge that was similarly attempted by the Bush administration in front of the Supreme Court of the United States, and was picked apart for the irresponsible maneuver that it is.

First, some background. Periodically parties to the major human rights conventions face review before a committee of experts, one committee for each treaty. The Convention on the Rights of the Child has a matching Committee on the Rights of the Child. These committees receive reports from states, discuss the reports with an official delegation from the reporting state, make observations on the reports, and make general recommendations to all states on how to interpret the treaty. Earlier this month the Holy See delegation presented their report before the Committee Against Torture (stewards of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment).

The crux of the dodge is that the convention applies here and not there. How a sovereign makes their pitch: You, the human rights analyst, must keep your gaze fixed upon this certain zone here – a zone I, the sovereign, have conveniently identified for you. Do not shift your gaze to that zone over there; I haven’t pointed out that zone over there as worthy of your scrutiny. Focus exclusively on my conduct in the zone I have outlined for you. Over in that zone there I can conduct myself in whatever way I please, without consequence or criticism from you. Why? Well, because that zone is over there and you should be focusing on this zone here.

Anyone interested in upholding human rights is bound to ask, well what exactly is going on over in that zone there? What precisely are you, the sovereign, attempting to hide in that zone there? Slicing the world into zones in this manner, what’s more allowing the sovereign under scrutiny to do so, can only lead to serious trouble for upholding human rights.

With the Bush administration, the claim went that federal courts do not have jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay; thus the executive can conduct itself as it pleases without scrutiny from the federal courts. Rasul and Boumediene saw that argument off, criticizing the view advanced by the Bush administration as meaning “the political branches may switch the Constitution on or off at will”. Just as that interpretation would spell trouble for constitutional rights, that interpretation vitiates obligations undertaken by states when they accede to the human rights conventions.

The Vatican recently attempted to make a case that rhymed with these accountability evading Bush administration claims. The Holy See urged, look at the city-state, not the global institution over which we preside. Rightly, the Committee Against Torture took a dim view of this argument. One expert, Felice Gaer, said (Guardian),

show us that, as a party to the convention, you have a system in place to prohibit torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment when it is acquiesced to by anyone under the effective control of the officials of the Holy See and the institutions that operate in the Vatican City state

The international human rights regime is about applying exacting scrutiny to sovereigns’ behavior, and Gaer applies the correct standard. Sovereigns don’t get to wriggle out of responsibility in this manner. The public, civil society, human rights experts, and other parties to the convention are correct in demanding more than excuses unworthy of a toddler, let alone a sovereign.

The first is Internationally Wrongful Memes (via OpinioJuris), basically international law humor. It reminds me of the clippings on professors’ offices, oftentimes New Yorker cartoons. When links to International Court of Justice cases are involved, it is fairly dry humor.

“The capacity of a government to represent the State in its international relations does not depend in any degree upon the legitimacy of its origin, so that the USURPER who in fact holds power with the consent express or tacit of the nation acts validly in the name of the State.”

Loser?(Double torqued ellipse from Richard Serra’s the Matter of Time)

The key reason to engage with art of any form is to determine who is best.

Are Rimbaud and Baudelaire better than Byron and Longfellow? Clearly not. Rimbaud and Baudelaire had the great disadvantage of writing in French. Clearly not God’s language. The language of poetry is English.

And are Byron and Longfellow better than Shakespeare. Clearly not. Shakespeare is the ur-text of English poetry and everything that comes before or after him can only hope to be second best.

The primary reason for reading Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Byron, Longfellow, and Shakespeare? Not to engage with the ideas they present. Not to marvel at the voices, wordplay, or what Stephen Fry refers to as the sound-sex of it. No, the primary reason for reading these authors, the highest calling of artistic criticism, remains list creation. Listicles of art works, art forms, and individual artists.

Observe: Michelangelo’s Pietà is better than Richard Serra’s the Matter of Time, architecture is better than sculpture, and, as we saw earlier, English being better than French helps us come to conclude Shakespeare is better than Rimbaud.

Who is number one? That’s the question that should preoccupy us when engaging with a work of art. “Il pleure dans mon coeur” Sorry Verlaine. Not number one. “I wandered lonely as a cloud” Sorry Wordworth. Not number one. Imagine a giant tournament bracket pitting each artist against every other artist. How else to determine a poet laureate but a knock down, drag out fight?

The individual contests most probably resemble epic rap battle of history episodes. The task of the art critic: keeping score. A fantastically large ledger of who surpasses whom.

And thus this artistic analysis of poetry can be carried over to music. Thus through a series of deductions which need not detain us here, classical music is found to be the best form of music. The Great American Songbook, unimportant. Jazz, similarly unimportant. And poplar music? Well, turning to the Shakespeare I call popular music,

A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a
base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,
hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a
lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,
glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;
one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a
bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but
the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,
and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I
will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest
the least syllable of thy addition.

Popular music holds the title of lowest of the low. On the whole failing to innovate, failing to criticize, failing to engage with the society in which it exists. Armed with the authoritative tournament bracket, the music critic can discard among others, the efforts of John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and Jim Morrison. Popular music holds onto the label art only by the tips of its fingernails.

And thus we have the primary task of artistic criticism. Creating enumerated lists of who is best, second best, third best, and so on. Old Masters in. Abstract expressionists out – after all my three-year old could do that. An ordered taxonomy of the arts from which to instruct the ignorant. To answer definitively, whose art precisely is the best art? And further, far from art criticism as a tool to explore the variegated world of human expression, far from art criticism as jumping off point to craft one’s own journey through the multifarious multifaceted genius of humankind, it is better to think of art criticism as a weapon. As a cudgel. Art criticism as a blunt instrument to insult, to chastise, and to lay low all those unexposed to the dogma, the perpetual Truth about art.

[The foregoing prompted, in part, by a discussion over at Ordinary Times. In case it is somehow unclear, I think it’s perfectly ok to do listicle making for fun. But if you wander into Charles Murray territory (e.g. Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950), then this contest of superlatives is tailor made for you.]

“Russian President Vladimir Putin (back) addresses the Federal Assembly, including State Duma deputies, members of the Federation Council, regional governors and civil society representatives, at the Kremlin in Moscow”
(Reuters/Alexei Druzhinin/RIA Novosti/Kremlin)

“You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext,” declared John Kerry on March 2 as Russia began its conquest of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Though he didn’t intend it, the U.S. Secretary of State was summing up the difference between the current leaders of the West who inhabit a fantasy world of international rules and the hard men of the Kremlin who understand the language of power. The 19th-century men are winning.

In a forceful challenge to the liberal internationalist strategic vision, the Wall Street Journal editorial board claims indeed the strongmen are winning. Welcome to the 19th Century presents a challenge to liberal internationalism that must occur to anyone following recent events in Crimea. In the face of a state wielding power at the end of a gun, what shield is international law or international institutions like the OSCE and UN? What good is the liberal internationalist vision of US foreign policy if it can’t get Russia out of Crimea posthaste?

In the past weeks, the diplomatic watchword on the US and EU’s part has been de-escalation. Convene the parties to the Budapest Memorandum, form a Ukraine-Russia and others contact group, dispatch OSCE or UN envoys to Crimea, have the Secretary-General of the UN use his good offices – the diplomatic routes out of this course towards conflict abounded. Should we blame liberal internationalism for Russia’s failure to take one of these face-saving offramps to further conflict?

No. It is true that Russia has chosen to create difficult to dislodge facts on the ground in Crimea, and done so in place of offers of mediation and diplomacy. But the structures of the international system have helped to clarify the decision Russia has made; the fact that the stated Russian objectives, protect Russian-speakers in Ukraine, could have been addressed using legitimate routes is clear to international system participants. This point is most evident in Russia’s demonstrated isolation on the United Nations Security Council; Russia alone voted against the March 15 UN Security Council draft resolution.

And further, the liberal internationalist institutions have put into sharp relief the conflict between Russia’s recent actions and Russia’s prior commitments. The liberal international order has demonstrated its utility in sharply highlighting how Russia has strayed from the legitimate pathways in pursuing its stated objectives, the well-being of the Russian-speaking population in Crimea. Thus far, no one else has bought the case Russia has been peddling of resurgent, threatening Ukrainian neo-Nazis, Russian-speaker refugee flows out of Ukraine, and the imminent danger to Russian-speakers remaining in Ukraine.

What would winning would look like for Russia? One of Russia’s long-term aims is a successful Eurasian Union with Russia as the central node. A force multiplying international institution serving to give Russia even greater heft on the world stage – paralleling the way that Germany, France, and the UK derive benefit from the European Union. After this intervention in Crimea, what are the prospects for a successful Eurasian Union, for broad, deep, cooperative, integration of prospective members akin to that of the European Union? Post-Crimea, what are the prospects of states clamoring to get into the Russian-led Eurasian Union the way that some states have ardently desired (sometimes for decades) to enter the European Union? I’d say slim and dim.

Current possession of Crimea is a tactical victory for the moment, Black Sea Fleet secure, warm water port access guaranteed, definite benefits to Russia. But notably, these are assets Russia possessed before the intervention. And in terms of strategic victory, securing the Eurasian Union’s future? These military maneuvers have eroded its prospects as an actor on the world stage. What good is a union of states that have been bullied into joining? No more long-term good than the USSR, I’d argue. And supposing one day Russia hoped to have the Baltic states, or Poland tempted away from Western Europe and towards its orbit. What prospect for wielding soft power having exercised hard power in this manner?

The fact that the wheels of liberal internationalism sometimes turn slowly indicates only that diplomacy is hard. Foreign policy coordination, by consensus, among the 28 European Union members is fraught with difficulty in a way that foreign policy coordination in the US never is. There are countries geographically nearer to or further away from Russia; there are countries with deeper economic relationships with Russia and countries fairly independent from Russia as an energy supplier. But given the challenges the European Union has faced over time, the institution will at least muddle through, towards sanctioning Russia for recent behavior.

We already have evidence of the EU’s reaching towards a viable consensus. On March 10 in his oral report to the House of Commons on the European heads of government meeting over Crimea, David Cameron outlined a three phase approach to Russia (Hansard),

first, some immediate steps to respond to what Russia has done; secondly, urgent work on a set of measures that will follow if Russia refuses to enter dialogue with the Ukrainian Government; and thirdly, a set of further, far-reaching consequences should Russia take further steps to destabilise the situation in Ukraine.

Various initial phase punishments are already underway. The prospect of the G-8 turning into the G-7, freezing prospective Russian membership in the OECD, and also stopping negotiations on freeing trade and reducing visa restrictions.

And what of Russia’s ambitions to become less economically dependent on extractive industries? The Russian Silicon Valley, the Russian innovation society, the Russian 21st century enterprise zones? At a White House press briefing Jay Carney posed a version of this question worth considering, what multi-national corporation CEO can look to Russia as a site for investment? These types of decisions are not made with the fanfare of speeches in the Kremlin’s Saint George Hall, or the frisson of flag waving in Red Square. Quietly, deliberately, and with little attention, much like some diplomatic avenues, Russia will be ruled out.

These legitimacy and economic angles underinform from the WSJ editorial’s analysis of liberal internationalism in the face of Russia’s behavior towards Crimea. They are certainly missing from the WSJ’s stark claim “what defines international order is the cold logic of political will and military power”.

Lastly, US liberal internationalists must look beyond the crises of the present day. It is important to remember international law scholar Louis Henkin’s observation, “Almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations almost all the time”. Now those “almost” qualifiers are a very big deal; some of the most horrifying behavior by states (e.g. North Korea) and intractable conflicts in the international system lay within those almosts. Moreover, for Russia, for Ukraine, for the near-term prospects for security in Europe those almosts seem insurmountable obstacles to a stable international system. But for the long-term prospects of peace and the US place in the world, a rule-governed international order remain essential.

Yglesias’ disapproving reply to Kenneth Griffin’s $150 million donation to Harvard, “Harvard is already really rich.” Furthermore, “highly selective universities are terrible targets of charitable donations.” Essentially because, “…highly selective institutions remain what they always have been—mechanisms for the perpetuation of inequality and hierarchy.” Yglesias writes, “…the basic social role of the elite, highly selective institution hasn’t changed—they are both elite and selective, not democratic or egalitarian.”

Vedder makes a similar case, pointing out that “The eight Ivy League schools have less than 1 percent of U.S. college students but almost 17 percent of all endowment money.” These universities aren’t serving as engines to promote social mobility, “In the highly endowed schools, a median of 16 percent of students received Pells, compared with 59 percent at the lowest-endowed institutions.” Vedder asks, “Why do we provide favorable tax treatment that primarily benefits these wealthy schools?”

What are Yglesias and Vedder missing?

Well first, an alum can see oneself in a long line of beneficiaries of past giving. Those past givers helped make your education possible. Therefore, it is reasonable to voluntarily take on a responsibility to give to future generations of alums. This isn’t some abstract story for me. A Class of X grant paid tens of thousands of dollars towards my college tuition. That was serious money, mostly from people I have never met and will never meet. Supposing I had spectacular Kenneth Griffin wealth, I can see giving money to my already well off alma mater and it not being “ridiculous”, “misguided”, or a “terrible idea” as Yglesias claims.

Also, money for Harvard pushes the would-be Harvards to try to do and be better. For instance, Harvard College’s grants not loans program had a significant impact beyond Harvard. Within five years time peer institutions were instituting the same policy. Need blind admissions, simultaneously admitting students irrespective of aid needs and meeting full aid needs, are another policy that has reached beyond the Ivy League to more than 40 colleges (US News). In order to remain competitive, similar caliber schools have to adjust. In the financial aid sphere, this has redounded to the benefit of students.

Yglesias points out that fancy colleges mainly serve an elite population; citing a chart from Brookings “a student at one of America’s most-selective universities is fourteen times more likely to be from a high-income family than from a low-income family”. The problem that Yglesias and Vedder cite is well worth paying attention to: insufficient socio-economic diversity at selective institutions is rightly troubling. But also consider that this phenomenon is at the tail end of a process with approximately 18 years of inputs by other social forces and institutions. Furthermore, since Griffin’s gift targets financial aid, it is directed at precisely those underrepresented students (a point Yglesias acknowledges with the backhanded compliment, “At any rate, in the scheme of misguided donations to Harvard this one seems not-so-awful. It’s mostly for financial aid, which is nice.”).

Also keep in mind that the things these fancy colleges are setting out to do are different from what community colleges set out to do. And that is a good thing. Diversity in the higher education sector allows for meeting a multiplicity of needs from remediation and career-change training to cutting edge research. A community college usually doesn’t have the global ambitions of the Harvards of the world. A campus on every continent is the kind of ambition Ivy presidents opine about. The aim of being a global university, occasionally becoming a “multiversity”, dots the speeches of high-powered university presidents. Or the aim to be at the forefront of pathbreaking research on not only Topic X, but also on related Topics Y and Z. For instance, the $200 million gift to the mind, brain, and behavior initiative at Columbia. If you want to be at the cutting edge of understanding, and hopefully curing, neurological disorders that is going to take big bucks.

And why not, as Vedder suggests, cut off Harvard? Why the capital gains tax break to the institution as well as the tax break for the individual donor?

Exhibit B is the the university-government-corporate partnerships of places like Research Triangle Park and Silicon Valley. Others are currently trying to emulate these innovation, venture capital, catalytic research-enterprise zones; Dmitry Medvedev’s Skolkovo Innovation Center is one notable example. Cutting off the Harvards of the world is removing one of the legs from this three-legged stool.

Overall, there are multiple important values worthy of support in higher education and beyond. Both support for already world-beating institutions as well as support for institutions that manifestly serve a broader segment of society are worthwhile. Support for elite institutions should not be withdrawn in favor of the non-elite institutions, both deserve public and private donor support. Rather than make a case against giving somewhere, make a case for giving to somewhere as well. A point that extends well beyond higher education giving. Want to give money to the Met Opera? Wundebar! The Poetry Foundation gets $200 million bequeath? Great! This should be a both/and conversation, not an either/or conversation. A culture of major giving by the mega-wealthy is worth celebrating. Whatever the institution they give to, including Harvard.

(Full disclosure, I went to a university with a significant endowment, I have also worked at a university with a significant endowment. Neither was Harvard.)